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Thursday, 28 April 2011

A little while back I was asked to make some tiny porcelain buttons to fit onto a newborns hand knitted jacket, it did prove to be a quite fiddly at the time but as you can see they have been retrieved from the kiln and they have turned out rather well. Little did I know the fiddliest of all tasks was about to take shape.......

Threading with fine copper wire onto a backing card! How else will I keep myself from losing them all?

Sunday, 24 April 2011

The latest firing contained these lovely crank clay egg cups made by the 4 & 5 year olds at school. I can really gush about these because they did a great job and they all look so good, some may even be big enough to hold a real egg, others made by smaller hands may just have to be sat on a window sill. Here are the finished eggs....

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If clay is your thing and you are looking for ideas suitable for childrens projects this is the book. I've found it a really good source and it has loads of things to make for a spectrum of ages, quite experimental stuff to the beginnings of jewellery making and sculpture.Clay projects for childrenbyMonika Krumbach

Tuesday, 12 April 2011

I thought I would try out a new recipe which uses all natural ingredients again. This time I made the basic cold pressed soap recipe used previously for goats milk and almond butter soap but omitting the almond butter, goats milk and the essential oils, instead I replaced those ingredients with wheatgerm oil, calendula petals (dried marigold petals) and orange essential oil and mixed all together.

Here are the ingredients for making a moisture rich soap.

Here's what it looked like after adding some of the petals and orange oil. Smells yummy already!

Monday, 4 April 2011

A few weeks back I was involved with a local school making clay vessels with class 5 and six who were learning all about ancient Greece. They all made either a pinch pot or a coiled vase which they all really enjoyed. They have been drying out slowly in my workshop and I've been stacking them into a small top loading kiln ready for a bisque firing. I'm now feeling dread at the thought of opening it after firing incase they explode! Usually I don't worry but because there are so many and they spent so much time on them I'm feeling the pressure a bit, plus I'm using a smaller kiln that I'm not used too. So here goes, I'm gonna switch it on and see.
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Their pots occupy 3 shelves of this little kiln, I have some of my test pieces at the base of the kiln and a couple of my stoneware eggs at the top. (we shall see how they fair) I've fired lots of childrens work in the past but I just feel a little concerned with these as some have small components attatched added with the unfamiliarity of this type of kiln.

Friday, 1 April 2011

I've been meaning to use these blocks for ages for something other than printing into clay (which I love) so I had a go at using them for what they were originally intended, printing onto indian paper & fabrics. I started out using them to print onto brown parcel paper & the backs of old wallpaper rolls to see how they came out.

Here is the selection of indian printing blocks all different sizes and designs.

I've mixed some water based paints and used some old fabric to press the blocks onto to absorb the paint.

Heres some of the results printed onto the brown packing paper

Here they are drying out on an inspiration board. I'm going to use some of them to pack up my ceramics next time I do a stall and some to wrap gifts, next time I will try using them with fabric, (next time I indulge)

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MUD HANDS........A visual diary of what I make.

Print, texture and clay formations, practical Ideas and functional art that can be used for both purpose and style.
Here is where i document my successes and failings as both enable me to push on and are equally important in the making process.

Valentine Clays share friendly and knowledgable advice about their clays & raw materials from the smallest to the largest projects and offer a vast selection of clay bodies and will invariably send a few tester clays for you to try. Click to visit.